Air conditioning apparatus



July 7, 1936. R. D. DELAMERE AIR CONDITIONING APPARATUS Filed Aug. 16,1954 I 2 Sheets-Sheet l July 7, 1936. R. D. DELAMERE AIR CONDITIONINGAPPARATUS Filed Aug. 16, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented July 7, 19 36UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE AIR CONDITIONING APPARATUS Rudolf D.Delamere, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,

assignor to Delamere and Williams Limited, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaApplication August 16, 1934, Serial No. 740,053

'1 Claims. (Cl. 261-89) This application relates to apparatus forcleaning and tempering air for ventilation purposes by bringing it intointimate contact with fresh water, and my object is' to devise apparatusfor this purpose which will effect an efiicient multistage intimatecontact'between the water and air without excessive height of apparatusand in which the conditioned air is efiectively freed from entrainedwater as it passes from the apparatus.

The invention is hereinafter fully described and illustrated in theaccompanying drawings in which Fig. 1 is a vertical section of theimproved apparatus; a

Fig. 2 a section on the line 2-2 in Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 a section on the line 3-3 in Fig. 1.

In the drawings like numerals of reference in-- dicate correspondingparts in the different figures.

The apparatus as far as its basic features are 2 concerned comprises acasing I through which air is caused to flow from the bottom to the top,on its way passing through successive disk shaped sprays of water. Thewater thrown outwardly in any one spray contacts with the wall of theeas- 05 ing,-is collected and led to the axis of the casing to be againthrown out in a spray one step lower and so on.

The treatment is thus in a plurality of stages. As head room is usuallylimited it is necessary to cut down the height of each stage asmuch aspossible without. sacrificing efllciency, and to cut down the resistanceto air flow as much as possible. This result is attained by theconstruction which I will now described.

A shaft 6 is vertically journalled in the casing I and may be driven inany suitable manner.

To this shaft are secured a series of equally spaced slingers 5 whosefunction is to throw water in a radial spray outwardly against thecasing l.

Plain disks are not effective as the friction become the first mentioneddefect, but it is not possible to put enough vanes on a disk to give asumciently large number of fine Jets. I overcome the difllculty by'forming the slingers as circular bristle brushesjthe bristles of each ofwhich are substantially in contact to form a radially ribbed resilientdisk which readily imparts a whirling 66 motion to water dropped uponit, and discharges it in a multitude of fine Jets between which the airwill flow in fine streams. The bristles of the slingers may be oforganic material or of metal.

. Below each slinger an annular'trough 3 is $8- cured to the wall of thecasing. The inner wall of the trough is eccentric to its outer wall,thus forming an eccentric waterway, widening towards that side of thewaterway from which leads the spout 4. Conversely, the waterway of thetrough decreases in cross-sectional area each way from the spout 4 whichis substantially U shaped in cross-section. The capacity of the troughthus increases near the discharge spout which facilitates flow to thespout. Such a trough allows a maximum space therethrough for the passageof the air, and as the spout adjacent the trough has substantially asgreat capacity as the trough, friction is kept down to a minimum and thespout need not be inclined 20 downwardly, the hydraulic gradient of thesurface of the water being sufficient to eilect discharge. Referring toFig. 1 it will be noted that the top edge of each trough is below itsslinger to catch the water thrown thereby and that the 25 I bottomof thedischarge end of each spout overlies the next slinger so that the waterthrown by one slinger is fed to the next slinger. The bottom of thedischarge end of each spout is in a plane close to a plane passingthrough the top edge of the trough to enable the slingers to .be spacedas close as possible. The portion of each spout connecting its dischargeend with a trough may be inclined to increase the cross-sectional areaof the spout so that it will be substantially the same as that of thetrough at its point of connection therewith. In other words, the depthand width of the spout at this point will agree with the depth and widthof the trough at the point of connection. 0

It will be seen on reference to Fig. 1 that the inner wall of eachtrough slopes outwardly from the top to bottom so that water drippingdown the wall of a trough is caught by the trough next below and is fedto the corresponding slinger. It should also be noted that while thepreferred form for the troughs is to make each trough a circular annulusin plan, other forms are possible whereby the waterway of the troughinthus enabling me to get a suflicient number of stages within the headroom usually available. Further it follows from the eccentric design ofthe water trough that a maximum area of air passage is provided throughthe trough relative to the liquid flow capacity of the trough.

The casing l is supported on a pan 2 which is of greater diameter thanthe casing so as to catch any water of condensation which may drip fromthe latter. The lower end of the Shaft is secured to the rotor of a pumpI0 into which water from the pan 2 may flow.

A pipe 9 connects the outlet of the pump with the inlet [2 leadingthrough the casing above the top trough 3. This inlet might however bedirectly connected to any outside source of supply.

The pan is provided with an overflow ll. If the pump circulation beemployed make-up water may be added to the pan from time to time.

Near the top of the casing a fan 8 is secured to the shaft 8. Waterladen air passing up to the fan is thrown outwardly against the casingand is then directed inwardly again by the frusto-conical flange I3. Aninwardly directed flange I4 is positioned just below the fan blades.

From this it follows that air flowing centrally up the apparatus isthrown outwardly adjacent the top of the apparatus thus losing velocitywhich gives any water entrained therein the opportunity of dropping outby gravity and being returned to the interior of the apparatus by theflange l4. i

The shaft is shown as being driven by the motor l, the shaft of whichcarries a pulley i5 belted to the pulley l6 secured to the shaft 6.Obviously other drives might be employed.

It will be distinctly understood that this apparatus may be used forpurposes other than conditioning air, for instance it may be used tobring other gases and liquids into intimate contact for variouspurposes, to separate solids from gases by cleaning the gas orreclaiming the dust, to condense liquids out of gases, to evaporateliquids into gases, to transfer heat from gas to liquid or vice versa,to effect chemical reactions between gas and liquids, or to evaporateone liquid from another liquid without boiling.

What I claim as my invention is:

1. An air conditioning device comprising a casing; a shaft verticallyjournalled therein; means for causing air to flow through the casingaxially thereof; two axially spaced rotary water sling.- ers secured tosaid shaft; an annular water trough supported against the wall of thecasing between the two slingers having an outer circular wall and aninner circular wall eccentric to the outer wall; and a radial spoutconnected with the trough at its point of greatest width and adapted todischarge onto the lower water slinger, the waterway of the troughdecreasing in cross-sectional area each way from a point adjacent thespout giving a maximum area of air passage relative to the liquid flowcapacity of the trough.

2. An air conditioning device according to claim 1 in which the capacityof the spout adjacent the trough is at least substantially equal to thatof the trough at the same point and its sides substantially parallel.

3. An air conditioning device comprising 8. casing; a shaft verticallyjournalled therein; means for causing air to flow through the casingaxially thereof; two axially spaced rotary water slingers secured tosaid shaft; an annular water trough supported against the wall of thecasing between the two slingers having an outer circular wall and aninner circular wall eccentric to the outer wall; and a radial U shapedspout connected with the trough at its point of greatest -width andadapted to discharge onto the lower water slinger, the bottom of thedischarge end of the spout being located above the bottom of the trough,the capacity of the spout adjacent the trough being at leastsubstantially equal to that of the trough at the same point and itssides substantially parallal.

4. An air conditioning device according to claim 1 in which the slingersare formed of their circular bristle-brushes, the bristles of whichsubthe lower water slinger, the waterway of the 3 trough decreasing incross-sectional area each way from a point adjacent the spout and nopart of the spout being below the bottom of the trough.

6. An air conditioning device comprising a casing; a shaft verticallyjournalled therein; means for causing air to flow through the casingaxially thereof; two axially spaced rotary water slingers secured tosaid shaft; an annular water trough supported against the wall of thecasing between the two slingers; and a radial U shaped spout connectedwith the trough and adapted to discharge onto the lower water slinger,the bottom of the discharge end of the spout being located above thebottom of the trough and the capacity of the spout adjacent the troughbeing at least substantially equal to that of the trough at the samepoint while no part of the spout lies below the level of the bottom ofthe trough.

'7. An air conditioning device comprising 2. casing; a shaft verticallyjournalled therein; means for causing air to flow through the casingaxially thereof; two rotary water slingers secured to said shaft, eachslinger comprising a thin circular bristle brush, the bristles of whichsubstantially contact to form radially ribbed disks having substantiallycontinuous upper surfaces; and a trough receiving water thrown by oneslinger and discharging to the other.

' RUDOLF D. DmiAhmRE.

